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V&A Publishing FOOD: Bigger than the Plate Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan, eds.

Published to accompany the V&A’s exhibitionFOOD: Bigger than the Plate (18 May 2019 – 20 October 2019) Exhibition generously supported by BaxterStorey

250 × 180 mm, 176 pp (150 col and b/w illustrations)

From edible insects and lab-grown meat to urban farming and local sourcing, the future of our food concerns us all. How should we change our food systems to secure a more sustainable, healthy and fair future? FOOD: Bigger than the Plate engages with the artists, designers, cooks, scientists and farmers who are addressing this global challenge and exploring new ways of connecting us with what we eat. It discusses diverse and creative ways to reimagine food waste, biodiversity, supply chains and social empowerment through the politics and the pleasures of one of life’s single greatest necessities. RRP £25 / £20 from the V&A Shop ISBN 9781851779765

Over the past 200 years, farming has shifted in industrialized

countries from an activity in which most people participated to

a profession in which only a tiny percentage of the population

is directly involved. For many of us, farming has become an

abstract subject – something that feels remote from our daily

experiences and diets. And yet it is one of the most fundamental

processes through which the human species interacts with – and

impacts – the planet. Equally, the ways in which we use land and

labour to produce food is inextricably linked to questions of how

we live, work and organize society. Described variously as the

root of civilization and humanity’s biggest mistake, farming is

anything but a passive backdrop to our existence.1

Today, public debate on sustainability is drawing attention to the farm and questions of how and where our food is produced. Modern methods of agriculture (based on heavy use of fossil fuels, chemical inputs and monocultures) are now recognized to be major contributors to climate change, depletion of natural resources and loss of biodiversity. Agriculture is also a site of contemporary social struggle. Small-scale farmers around the world are defending their right to food sovereignty and cultural autonomy in opposition to neo-liberal markets, large-scale agribusiness, land grabbing and ongoing urbanization.2

Meanwhile, farming is undergoing rapid technological reinvention. Sensors, drones and wearable-tech for animals are transforming the farm into an internet of living things, and farmers are increasingly harvesting data alongside crops in a bid to improve both yields and environmental efficiencies. Growing organisms are taking

Farming

centre stage as the subject of emerging biotechnologies. As the Center for Genomic Gastronomy put it,

The twenty-first century is

indisputably the biological

century, and the farm is where

the action is.3

How these technologies will play out, and who controls and benefits from them, are questions at the heart of contemporary farming.

The concept of the Anthropocene positions the farm as a key site for rethinking the relationship between humans, technology and the natural world. In an era when the scale of man-made impact on the planet warrants the naming of a new geological epoch (as many scientists say it does), the romantic idea of nature as something pure or authentic and separate

P.48 CHAPTER 2: FARMING INTRODUCTION 0.15168kg

Rooftop farm in Hong Kong run by a collective of

artists, farmers and designers, HK Farm, founded 2012

P.49 C. FLOOD M. ROSENTHAL SLOAN 0.16432kg

and the meanings that it conveys, such that it triggers reactions that are sometimes irrational, or at any rate out of the ordinary.

We see ‘Eat Art’ as simply the thing to encourage people to let themselves go. The fact is that whenever food is used as a creative vehicle, those who experience it are touched in a way that goes beyond a ‘classic’ appreciation of art. As a rule, art takes place at a certain remove, which prevents direct interaction with the exhibited objects. By contrast, performances allow immediacy and interaction. In the case of food, it is not only possible to touch the artwork and experience it with one’s senses, especially smell, but also to actually devour parts of it oneself.

Handling food in a way that violates social norms is bound to be confusing. People are triggered by eating situations that undermine traditional conventions, even if only in minute details. And that is precisely what makes Eat Art or Food Design so remarkable. By detaching food from its ubiquitous manifestation in our day-to-day lives and placing it in new, unfamiliar contexts, food performances can trigger certain feelings and thoughts. At best they can open up new possibilities and usher in change. The sight, smell and taste of food all affect us, as do the cultural conventions and rules associated with its consumption. When we eat, we are prepared to let ourselves fall away, abandon our customary habits and experience something new. If we examine our traditions and delve into our cultural memory, we find ourselves asking why we eat the way we do. Could we not eat quite differently?

It’s a valid question. After all, the way in which our usual food is designed is not just a matter of tradition, cultural, health, diet and culinary quality, but also reflects such issues as CO2 emissions, land use, water consumption, energy and transport systems. Any change to our eating behaviour has a direct impact on social and economic processes, not to mention on the ecosystem. What, when, why and how we eat might help to alleviate precarious working conditions among harvest workers in Spain, contribute towards logging in South-East Asian rainforests, or lead to soil erosion in Central Africa, whether directly or indirectly. The eating culture determines what we eat and what value we place on quality and the conditions in which our food is produced. In the interests of our planet and its inhabitants (that is, us), it matters whether a society chooses a monocultural, centralized, industrialized model, or one oriented towards democratic, sustainable food production. Ultimately the production of food uses the lion’s share of the Earth’s natural resources, with agriculture responsible for 70 per cent of the world’s fresh water consumption and around 30 per cent of its overall CO2 emissions.1 In addition, around 53 per cent of the Earth’s land surface is used for agricultural purposes, thus creating mankind’s ‘agricultural footprint’ on the Earth. Finally, in Europe up to 40 per cent of food is thrown away.

Eating is a profoundly political act. With every bite we change the world, environmentally, economically and socially. Playing with food also means discarding common (eating) behaviours and questioning existing values in a child-like and open-minded way. Playing opens up possibilities for new ways of interacting with food. Don’t we even have a certain duty to play

with our food in order to constantly examine the boundaries of our eating culture and to give way for future development?

We are the result of our actions. We design, produce, consume, and then leave leftovers in our wake. In everything we do, we

follow cultural conventions – traditions, rules and laws. These reflect the values of our society. Many of these cultural practices run contrary to the idea of a sustainable lifestyle, for instance the notion that food is particularly elegant and worthwhile if it requires as much crockery as possible. Many consider it unseemly to serve up leftovers, or embarrassing to divide up servings, box up the rest of your meal to take with you or give it away. Then there’s the belief that steak tastes better and is healthier than lights (game or livestock lungs), and that meat is more valuable than vegetables. Why is it not the done thing to ask how much natural gas has gone into producing a greenhouse-grown tomato? And why do we consider the ability to buy grapes from the supermarket in spring a sign of progress? As citizens, we can stick to these conventions or create new values. In doing so, we are defining our relationship with nature, our fellow human beings and our own future. Finally, it can pay to play with food.

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One end of the supply

chain meets the other,

Honey & Bunny, photograph

by Daisuke Akita, 2016

FOOD : BIGGER THAN

THE PLATE

Edited by Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan

V&A Publishing

P.3 FOOD: BIGGER THAN THE PLATE TITLE PAGE 0.01264kg

Ooho Edible Water Bottle made from algenate,

Skipping Rocks Lab, London, 2014

Ceramic toilet made from surplus cow manure,

Museo della Merda, founded 2015

It is estimated that a staggering one third of all food produced globally is never eaten, representing a waste of energy and resources on a vast scale (not to mention a massive failure of distribution in a world where millions still go hungry).11 Changing this means addressing the causes of food waste throughout the supply chain, recovering food for human consumption before it is wasted and reining in over-production. Nevertheless, objects and processes that make waste tangibly present in our lives can begin to resensitize us to food as valuable biomatter.

At its best, working with waste can be a process of profound material engagement with processes of food production. As an accessories designer regularly working with leather (a by- and co-product of the meat industry), Alice V. Robinson decided to document in detail the life and death of a single lamb, and to use everything the animal provided her, attempting a waste-free production chain, to create a bag, a pair of shoes and gloves. This process of knowing and using the whole animal both determined the cut of the bag (to make maximum use of a single hide with all its individual idiosyncrasies) and created an emotional accountability for the life of the material (both the meat and the leather). As she writes ‘What you choose to hold is touching you back. Would you rather not know what that was?’12

Fernando Laposse, meanwhile, works with a Mexican village, Tonahuixtla, which is trying to restore indigenous farming methods and native corn varieties after imported American corn, herbicides and agricultural techniques led to the erosion of land and livelihoods (p.36). Together with the villagers he has developed a decorative veneer from the naturally colourful and variegated husks of the corn, which provides a secondary product and income from the crop. The vibrant new material embodies genetic biodiversity, culinary heritage, histories of contested land use and the right of people to

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‘11458’ is a collection of accessories created from

a single sheep, wasting nothing. The leather was

made into bags and shoes, the bones dipped in silver

for the clasps, the wool knitted into gloves,

the meat cooked and consumed. The designer purchased

the sheep from her local farmer in Shropshire and

documented its journey from field to slaughter,

through the tanning process to the creation of

the products. In doing so, she gained an intimate

sensibility for how her materials came to be as

co-products of the meat industry. The resulting

accessories preserve the traces of a former life

and encourage a closer material connection to the

world the wearer inhabits.

11458

Alice V. Robinson, 2018

choose how they feed themselves. Both these examples demonstrate that creating utility, beauty – and a story – out of the by-products of production and consumption can help re-establish empathy with food as a material cycle that connects landscapes, organisms and people.